Kevin Pakulis: News

It's been a pleasantly typical Summer so far. Heat, storms, everything coming alive here in the desert. Difficult to describe just how awe inspiring this furnace can be. Love those storms. One blew in the other day that nearly took the roof off. Trees bent sideways. Thunder and lightning crashing down at the same moment. Lasted a good 20 minutes. When it was over, 2 young, and somewhat traumatized, Screech-Owls made there way onto the phone line by my window. I had known for a while that they were around but I had yet to actually see them. They were barely hanging on, all ruffled up, bobbing back and forth, dizzy. But they sure as hell survived the micro-burst. There's gotta be a lesson in there somewhere. Of course the storm brought out all kinds of dinner options for the youngsters. Lesson there too, I suppose. Little brown moths were everywhere, the lizards were going nuts snagging them out of mid air. Mice, birds, spiders, quail, bugs, snakes. Everybody comes out after it rains. Everybody eats. I noticed that even that damn lone male Javalina ( who has thankfully still not figured out the trash can lid ) managed to grab the low hanging fruit off the apple tree. Good for him...

I feel an affinity with people who stick it out through the Summer. We saw a bunch of them at our acoustic show Sunday night at The Boondocks Lounge. Quite a few folks I'd never met. Nice. We appreciate that a lot. Hope we see you again.

We're continuing to write and add new tunes. Feels good. Reading & writing the Summer away. I suppose if we were on the road more, we could get away with slacking off a little and playing the same sets. But we're not, and consequently, it's an added motivation to write new stuff. ( ...if there's a publishing deal out there, I sure could use it about now.)

Someone mentioned to me recently that they heard I had played at The Lost Hotel a few weeks ago with The Duct Tape Cowboys. Wondered why I hadn't listed it on the web site calendar. Well, that may or may not have been me leaping off the drum riser and over the Marshall half-stack. Can't say for sure. But how it works is that I only list shows where we play predominately our own stuff. Fortunately, I get my share of side gigs, resort/corporate stuff, cover band dates, but I don't list it on the calendar. That seems to help keep the line between business and pleasure. I prefer it that way.

Every once in a while an artist will come along that just knocks you out. That happened to me this past week. I saw a guy whose name ( I think ) is Paolo Nutini. Absolutely floored me. I assume he had something, if not everything, to do with writing the gems I heard him deliver on Austin City Limits. Either way, he and his band caught all my attention. Will be looking for them again.

I suppose that's about it. Coffee wearing off. Sun going down. Temperature has dropped to around 100. Good time to go out...

KP

...I've decided to attempt to share some news, thoughts, ramblings. It's been brought to my attention that some may want to know a little more about this and that as it relates to writing songs and playing guitar for fun and profit. Fair enough. And now that my 1 1/2 year experiment in living without a computer is over, what the hell... Let's start off with a big Thank You to everyone who attended The 1st Annual Kevin Pakulis Triangle L Ranch Party over Memorial weekend. It turned out to be a helluva nice evening out at the ranch. I was concerned that I may have gone a bit far out on a limb with this deal. But, as fate would have it, well over 200 people showed up and we had a ball. After everything and everyone was paid off, there was even a little gas money left over for moi. Pretty cool. I teamed up with my good friend, Sharon Holnbach, owner of The Triangle L Ranch, to pull this thing off. Sharon is a real gem and not easily phased by the complexities of staging such an event. The perfect hostess. We pulled together a team of tireless volunteers who saw to it that everything ran smoothly. Many thanks to all the volunteers. Couldn't have done it without you. Renaissance woman Tena Moyer opened the show with a solo set. Tena's writing, guitar, and vocal skills are amazing and her delivery is both laid back and powerful. Yeah, both at the same time. A world class artist. She doesn't perform locally much, so we were thrilled that she signed on to help us out. The Van Dykes, a ridiculously good power trio fronted by legendary guitar hero Danny Krieger, with Ralph Gilmore on drums and Larry Lee Lerma on bass, took the stage after Tena and had people dancing from the gitgo. Krieger, Gilmore, and Lerma; what a combo! KP Band (KP, Duncan Stitt and his magic keyboards, Larry Lee Lerma, Ralph Gilmore) went on around 8 and played a good hour and a half or so before being joined on stage by Krieger, and good friend of the band Ned Sutton for the finale. I quite enjoy Uncle Ned's company, and Oh, Brother he sure can sing! Rocky Richardson did his usual exemplary job of running sound. Skip McElfresh did a fine job recording the festivities. A good sound crew is priceless. I want to also thank the folks at KXCI 91.3FM for allowing me to promote the show on air (twice!) the week before the event. I flat out love KXCI. We're very fortunate to have such a great radio station down here in S. AZ. (You can listen to KXCI on your computer from anywhere in the world.) So, bottom line, we will be having The 2nd Annual Kevin Pakulis Triangle L Ranch Party on Sunday, May 30, 2010 (info@triangleLranch.com). Thanks again to everyone for making that possible...

What else... Been writing a lot lately. Since Larry Lee and I put out our acoustic duo album last year, I've had the strong sense that the next record wants to be Harder, Faster, Louder (in no particular order). Been having fun blasting away on my Strat through a Blues Jr. turned up good n' loud. Writing a bunch of rock n' roll stuff. The occasional heartfelt ballad is surfacing, and that's ok, but by and large it's mostly raw rockers that are coming out. Three chords and a cloud of dust. Off shore cannons and chain saws. Feels good. Can't wait to get back in the studio. The approach this time is to kinda season the songs by playing them live before trying to lay them down. Who knows, maybe we'll end up doing a live album. I've always thought that the best takes of our stuff were gotten at rehearsal when we stuck one mic in the middle of the room and just played. We'll see...

Summer reading... Summer in Tucson requires a certain amount of hunkering down. Not unlike the way people approach Winter up north, except it's Summer. Good books are an important part of hunkering down. Just finished Levon Helm's autobiography, "This Wheel's On Fire". Great read. Made me want to go back and listen to all the old Band stuff. My friend Dave, aka Kidd Squidd, turned me on to a CD of The Basement Tapes some time back. Must dig that out... I received a copy of "A Deeper Blue, The Life and Music of Townes Van Zandt" from my dear friend Char Rogers. Another good read that I would recommend. I've been a Townes fan since high school. Have often wondered if one needs to go that deep and dark in order to write a great and timeless song. Maybe, maybe not. I'm fairly sure I've been as deep and dark as I ever want to be. It'll just have to do. It should be noted that Char's sweet sister Carol passed away earlier this Spring. Another crazy, lovable Texan. It was tough to see her go. I appreciate Char and the family allowing me to be around during those final weeks. It was a beautiful experience and a source of strength to me... And speaking of sources of strength, been reading a lot of Eckhart Tolle. "The Power of Now" and "New Earth". Good stuff if you're looking for something to hang your hat on.

We've got some cool shows coming up this Summer. You can check out the calendar for a fairly complete listing. Saturday, June 13 at The Boondocks Lounge is gonna be a blast. Love that place. It's kinda home base for the band. Reminds me of Alice's Restaurant the way Cathy looks out for musicians. A beautiful thing... We'll be doing a couple shows at Janos up in the foothills. The patio, the city lights, best food in the world. Great gig... There's a Sunday music series going on all Summer up on top of Mt. Lemmon (An hours drive from Tucson. I believe it's the southern most ski slope in the country.) We'll be joined up on the mountain by our good friend Jesus Lopez. Jesus is a young up and comer who plays some fine slide and always sings like he means it. He'll do a solo set as will Denise Lane, another good, young singer/songwriter. Check out the calendar and drop in on us if you get the chance.

Well, there's the first installment. That wasn't so hard. I'll try to check in every so often when there's stuff to write about. In the meantime, thanks for all the support and I hope we see you at a show.

Best,
Kevin